The See-Saw

The European relationship with violence can most aptly be described as total and amoral. Total violence or total pacifism. Europeans have gone from using total violence for utterly amoral ends to claiming total pacifism, which is amorality defined.

To use Germany as an example: In 1942, Germany employed violence in the amoral cause of wiping whole tribes of human beings from the face of the earth. In 1992, Germany refused to use violence to stop the same crime from being committed in Bosnia.

The German "rationale" in 1992 was that violence is "always wrong". This is not a noble stand of principle, a heartening example of a bloody lesson well learned. This is using guilt for the most amoral actions in recorded history as an exemption from making any moral judgements ever again.

"We Germans committed the Holocaust, so who are we to judge or intervene in a preventable Holocaust 50 years later?"

Europe knows both ends of the See-Saw, but they know nothing about balance. The opposing ends on the see-saw in question are the idolatry of the state and the idolatry of the individual. Europe went from exalting the state above all to exalting the individual above all; there was no in between.

America is comparatively superior at that in between, and therein lies the root of much of Europe's America envy.

Well into my father's lifetime, the European powers were perfectly willing to employ unprecedented levels of violence against any number of other people and against themselves. They went from using profligate violence at the drop of a hat to suppress people to refusing to use any violence to halt the type of suppression they used to dish out for breakfast.

In 1942 Germany used its wealth and manpower to either exterminate or displace whole "races" of people, even though "races" of people exist not in biology but in European ideology. In 1992 Germany refused to use its wealth and manpower to stop its neighbors from exterminating or displacing whole "races" of people.

This is the Europe that liberals praise. It is nothing to praise. It is desiccated, unwilling to use violence to halt blatant mass murder. America used to be different. And we still are, to some extent.

Europe has given up the ghost of the illusion that it could control billions of brown folks. The US hasn't quite gotten there yet. And that's too bad. We will learn Europe's lesson in time. But we won't take it too far.

What's too far? Well, I'll put it this way: if Europe were subjected to any sort of coordinated subversion or sabotage or invasion, what do you think would happen? Do you think Europe would defend itself? I don't. I think we'd have to save them. Again

That's the tragedy. Americans are overbearing and paranoid. But the Europeans are apathetic and amoral. They can afford to detach themselves and pontificate about the sins of American hegemony precisely because they have no self-reliance.

Europe bitching about US is akin to a teenager bitching about their parents; surely there are several valid complaints, but who's paying the bills?

Europe has become whole, free, and at peace for the first time in history thanks to US. Indeed, the very concept of "Europe" did not exist in most minds until very recently. Europe has historically been divided, enslaved and at war. We changed that equation for half of Europe in 1945, and eventually for all of it.

We have our sins, of course, but our sins since our imperium was born in 1947 have never reached the extremes of European ideology; we have not committed industrial genocide as policy nor would we tolerate it anywhere near us. Damning with faint praise perhaps, but faint is better than aint.

The winter Olympics are on as I write. The slalom event bears relevance to this subject matter. The skier has to weave back and forth laterally across the course to hit his or her goals. He or she also has to go downhill as fast as possible. So he or she must constantly weigh the benefits of forward versus lateral motion.

And that is what the US is relatively good at. We know how to zig-zag; we have lateral movement. The Europeans, on the other hand, are more interested in speed. They always get where they're going quicker than we do, but that conveniently ends up in US having to rescue them from a high ground that they never fought for and that isn't worth defending.